Well I play........Field Hockey

Got up early this morning to capture the sunrise but missed it. Went to the back of the house for a smoke and there was last nights elusive moon. As our house lies directly on a North/South, East/West point the Sun was shining through the front window and the Moon was directly out of the back window. Got a great shot, but I'm not posting it.



And here's why.... we went to see the Son and Heir in the first game of the season against arch rivals Manchester Indians, the teams have some history and the game is always full of incident.

The game started pretty even but Bolton eventually fought their way to a 3-0 lead.

Then the fun started, Manchester had two players sin-binned so they made a thinly disguised complaint to the umpire about racism from the spectators. The umpire bottled it totally, there hadn't been any racist comments, but he stopped the game and warned us about "the noise and comments". From then on every decision went Manchester's way. As you might know Hockey has two umpires and the decisions were so poor that the ump at my end of the pitch, noticing my Umpires badge ( I too am qualified to officiate) commented "It's not my fault if the other umpire is crap!"

After half time Manchester got a goal back, then another, 3-2, then Bolton scored a penalty,4-2, then Manchester scored, 4-3, next a Bolton goal 5-3 and then came the craziest moment I've ever seen.

The small crowd, about 20, were getting pretty excited, the dodgy ump was still making poor decisions and something must have been said because the whistle blew and the umpire asked the crowd to be silent! Not going to happen in such an exciting game.

A minute later the ump must have heard something else because he blew up and sent us all off... the crowd, plus the team that had arrived for the next game plus the umpire for the next game!!! 38 of us in total! And he refused to re start the game until we all left the pitch side.

Now as a qualified umpire I knew he couldn't do that but we went. Manchester scored again and the game ended up 5-4.

After the game the sent off umpire made a complaint to the league official, Bolton team manager made a complaint, Manchester team manager made a complaint and I couldn't resist...... I pointed out that as the team waiting for the next game had all been sent off then technically the next game couldn't start!

To cap it all there was an umpire assessor there so I made sure he got a full report from me about the poor reffing, the comment from one ump about the other and the sending off of 38 people!!!

Thats only the second time I've ever been sent off and the Boss and Chris's girlfriend weren't too impressed either!

P.S Forgot to say, the Son and Heir is the goalie.